Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal is seen at the Ning offices in Palo Alto, Calif. on Wednesday August 11, 2010.

Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal is seen at the Ning offices in Palo Alto, Calif. on Wednesday August 11, 2010.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

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Lytro's light field cameras let users choose the focus after the picture is taken.

Lytro's light field cameras let users choose the focus after the picture is taken.

Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle

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Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal (second from right) talks during an executive staff meeting as Alex Fishwick (right), manager of advocacy; Jon Stueve (left), general counsel; Diego Doval (second from left), chief product officer/chief technical officer and Sridatta Viswanath (third from left), vice president of engineering and operations listen along with others in the boardroom at the Ning office in Palo Alto, Calif. on Wednesday August 11, 2010. less

In an exclusive interview with The Chronicle, Lytro's new chief executive officer acknowledged that the camera startup had a recent round of layoffs but also promised a series of "breakthrough" products in 2014.

The Mountain View company made a splash nearly two years ago with its light field camera, a novel technology that lets users refocus pictures after they're snapped by capturing millions of light rays through an array of tiny lenses. It scored $50 million from Andreessen Horowitz and other prominent venture capital firms, earned enthusiastic reviews in the media, and sealed deals to move the product at Best Buy, Target, Amazon and elsewhere.

But industry sources say the inaugural camera isn't selling well so far. Few of the distinctive devices, shaped like kaleidoscopes with corners, can be spotted in the wild, even around the famously gadget-crazy Bay Area.

The 7-year-old company had a "small" round of layoffs in February, affecting employees in operations and shipping but not product or engineering, said Jason Rosenthal, who took over the helm in April. Founder and Executive Chairman Ren Ng, who worked on the technology for his Stanford Ph.D., stepped down as CEO last June to focus on product development.

One of the key challenges the now-85-person company faces is that its base model costs $400, a high tab in a market where most people simply take pictures on their phones or might buy a $200 point-and-shoot, said Brian Blau, research director for consumer technology at Gartner.

And as interesting as the technology is, the average consumer doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about whether they'd prefer the foreground or background in focus. Meanwhile, the product suffers on the high end, because it doesn't include features that serious hobbyists and pros need, such as interchangeable lenses and exposure controls.

"For a typical small company with a lot of hype, the product maybe didn't quite meet expectations," Blau said. "People think the product is interesting, but it might not meet their needs in terms of what a camera is today."

Focus on products

But Rosenthal, previously an executive at tech investment firm Silver Lake, batted away any suggestions of broader financial issues at Lytro and stressed that the company's upcoming products have better odds of whetting consumer appetites.

He compared the company's inaugural product to the Tesla Roadster, the Palo Alto all-electric car company's first model, which was produced in a small batch in part to work out the technical kinks and ramp up the supply chain.

"We're working on what we think will be our Model S," Rosenthal said, referring to the latest Tesla auto model that earned a nearly perfect score from Consumer Reports. "We have a packed product road map for next year. We'll introduce multiple - what I think are just breakthrough products. I'm super excited, and the world will be as well."

He declined to color in that road map much, but said the long-term vision is to become "the new software and hardware stack for everything with a lens and sensor. That's still cameras, video cameras, medical and industrial imaging, smartphones - the entire imaging ecosystem."

He did suggest that the upcoming products could come at widely different price points, aimed at high- and low-end markets. But he said the prices across the spectrum would buy more powerful features, by an order of magnitude, than what consumers can get in other cameras for a similar amount today.

New strides

Rosenthal said the company will be able to deliver the advances relatively cheaply, because it's making strides in software that were once only possible with expensive hardware.

Margit Wennmachers, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, provided some hints as well, saying at least one new product would include features that professional photographers are looking for. She also mentioned video.

Wennmachers stressed that Andreessen Horowitz continues to have very high hopes for Lytro and said sales to date have actually exceeded internal projections.

"Our expectation wasn't as high as people on the outside had," she said. "Analysts and everyone else have to understand the full and complete vision, and you don't really share that when you're shipping version 1.0."

"It's one of those swing-for-the-fences ideas," Wennmachers said. "If it works, it's a monster success and you can build something really meaningful."

The company has already added interesting new features to the existing product with software upgrades, including the ability to shift the perspective of shots, moving the angle of the picture by a few degrees. In July, the company announced a firmware update and smartphone app that made it easier to share photos using a little known Wi-Fi chip in the camera. That same month, Lytro announced plans to sell the camera at 44 Best Buy stores and select outlets in parts of Europe.

Rosenthal declined to discuss financials in detail, but said the company is 20 percent ahead of its internal projections so far this year. He also stressed that it has ample runway from its last venture capital round in 2011.

Asked if the company is pursuing additional funding, he said it is regularly approached by interested parties and that he's in the midst of forming a financial strategy.

"We continue to grow and continue to invest, but we're in good shape," he said. "I wouldn't have come to the company if I didn't feel good about that."